Big Four auditor, KPMG, has released the results of its seventh annual Technology Industry Innovation Survey. The survey, of 740+ global tech leaders across twelve countries, shows an increasing belief that blockchain will change the industry.

Don’t Mind The Disruption

Nearly half of the respondents (76 percent of whom are C-level executives) thought that blockchain was ‘very likely’ or ‘likely’ to change their business within three years.

24 percent of respondents were neutral, and 27 percent felt this was “not likely” or “not at all likely.”

For comparison, in last year’s survey, a similar 28 percent of participants said blockchain was unlikely to disrupt their business within three years, or were unsure. However, last year 42 percent of respondents were neutral on the matter, with only 30 percent thinking this was “very likely.”

So while it seems that hardcore blockchain naysayers are still saying “nay,” a large chunk of the neutrals have swung. The belief in blockchain’s potential to disrupt the tech industry is clearly growing.

Disruption? What Disruption?

On the question of which areas of business the blockchain was most likely to disrupt, the spread was very similar to last year.

27 percent of respondents foresaw most disruption in internet of things (IoT) processes, such as software upgrades, product refills, and warranties. 22 percent thought the most disruption would be to trading (through platforms for small businesses).

There was a slight swing away from “reduction of risk” (20 percent) towards disruption of contracts (18 percent). The latter gained 4 percent of the total respondents from the former, compared to last year.

According to Damien Ducourty, Co-founder of B9lab:

There are possible use cases in everything from supply-chain (where IoT features heavily) to entertainment. The supply chain use case is one of the most obvious ones because of blockchains’ supposed immutability, and the ability to verify transactions in a trustless environment.

Challenges And Benefits

Key challenges highlighted in adopting blockchain technology included unproven business cases, complexity of the technology, and lack of capital for investment.

However, the perceived benefits of implementing blockchain centred around improved business efficiency and cost reduction.

There was an additional belief that blockchain implementation would differentiate their company’s product and/or service. And almost 10 percent of respondents cited business insight gained from incremental data as their top benefit.

Jehan Chu, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Kenetic and Co-founder of Social Alpha Foundation, summed up:

In the 9 years since bitcoin was invented, blockchain experiments launched a thousand ships. In 2019, we are seeing the first of those ships land, and we expect waves of successful proofs of concept to demonstrate true value and utility from payments to data security to supply chain which will turn the tide towards mainstream adoption.

Do you agree with the KPMG survey that blockchain will disrupt business models? Share your thoughts below!